For
a long time, in the history teaching, we are always used to students with
British mercantilism policy is how to restrict the economic development of
North America 13 states, to the north American colonies into its raw material
origin and dumping goods market, thus aroused the colonists revolt, and
eventually led to the outbreak of the American war of independence, and so on.
However, from the actual effect, the British policy on the North American
colonies was quite loose, and the navigation regulations, as a concrete
manifestation of mercantilism, also protected the development of the colonial
economy in a certain sense. Therefore, we need to make a specific analysis of the
actual effect of British mercantilist policies on the economic development of
North America, instead of a general generalization and a simple negation.

Mercantilism
is published in 1776, Adam Smith's "the wealth of nations" in the
first time and the use of a concept is put forward. As an economic policy
system and theory, it emerged in the 15th century and was gradually abandoned
in the 18th century. The early mercantilist doctrine represented a kind of
"monetarism", which was committed to encouraging the inflow of gold
and silver and strictly controlling the outflow of gold and silver so as to
achieve the goal of accumulating money in the country. Such a "miser"
policy is not really good for business. Spain is a model. Britain and France,
of course, is not a result is the "advanced" mercantilism, in earlier
times, they, like Spain, but then was a "real mercantilism", namely,
the late mercantilism, Thomas mencius is the representative of this thought. In
"Britain's wealth from foreign trade", published in 1664, meng
criticized the early monetarism and advocated active trade policies. Such
mercantilism advocates promoting the development of domestic industry,
improving and expanding domestic and foreign trade, selling more and buying
less, and obtaining gold and silver mainly through trade surplus.

The
mercantilist policy was the basis for the establishment and expansion of the
British empire, and the navigation ordinance was the concrete application and
embodiment of this policy. In 1651, Britain issued the first navigation ACTS,
which stipulated that goods from the colonies to England must be carried by
British ships. The second regulation of navigation, adopted in 1660, although
an adjustment was made to the regulation of 1651, which provided that foreign ships
could carry goods from the producing countries to the British market, still
prohibited foreign ships from carrying goods to and from the British colonies.
The amendment adopted in 1661 further stipulated that certain products of the
colony must be shipped to England, including sugar, tobacco, indigo and cotton;
After 1704, rice, sugar syrup, navigational supplies, beaver pelts and copper
were added to guarantee the home country's absolute control over colonial raw
materials and markets.

The
navigation ACTS of 1663 and 1673 further provided that even goods from English
ships to the colonies were first shipped to England, and then shipped to the
colonies on duty.

In
addition to the navigation act, other British policies also provided for the
production and sale of colonial goods. For example, in order to protect
domestic wool production and add 152 industries, the wool act of 1699
prohibited the sale of wool and woolen products to the British mainland. The
cap making act of 1732 prohibited the sale of hats to the British crown. The
iron act of 1750 prohibited the manufacture of iron in North America, and so
on. Moreover, in addition to the provisions of these decrees, many British
politicians and dignitaries had repeatedly made "high arguments"
against the development of industries in which the colonies competed with their
home countries. As the British Sir Chatham shouted in the early 18th century, "If
America decides to make a riding boot or a nail, I will mobilize all the
strength of Britain against it."

Undoubtedly,
according to these mercantilist policies, the fundamental purpose of the
British colonization of North America was to strengthen the power of the mother
country and increase the wealth of the suzerain country, so that the colony
became the source of raw materials and sales market of the mother country,
rather than for the development of the colony itself. From the point of view of
the British rulers, it was reasonable that the colonies were completely subject
to the needs of their home country. The development of colonial commerce and
trade must be based on the British interests. The official of the British
ministry of commerce made it clear: "in any colony, all beneficial plans
or commercial benefits must be understood to be illegal if they do harm the
interests and inconsistencies of the home country, and their practice is not
guaranteed, as they violate the purpose of establishing the colony... If the colonies
cannot be used in this way, then it is better for the country to have no
colonies.

Although
Britain establish colonies is designed to grow and development of home
countries, made all sorts of restrictions to the development of the colonies,
but an inevitable fact remains that the development of the north American
colonies was very prosperous, formed with the development of resources not only
the characteristics of diversified forms of export-oriented economy, and
entrepreneurship has been formed, manufacturing began to sprout, which laid a
foundation for the vigorous development of the economy in the future. Britain's
mercantilist policies though, in principle is opposed to compete with home
industry colony development, but the European colonial merchants not only
produce the goods to the British colonies, so long as they are not selling any
items listed in the UK, so trade anywhere in the western hemisphere were not in
violation of the navigation ACTS. Mercantilist regulations may inhibit the export
of certain goods, such as grain, and may limit the industrial production of the
colonies, but in general the colonies flourished. Of course, restrictions are a
nuisance, but in most cases they are not followed at all. Adam Smith, as well
as many in the United States of the early studies of scholars agree that:
before the revolution of mercantilism did not cause larger bound to colonial
America's economic development.

First,
Britain's colonial policy towards North America was relatively loose
politically. The North American colonies were originally developed by chartered
companies or private owners, and the British government did not directly
intervene in their overseas colonization except for commercial control.
Therefore, the northern colonies enjoyed considerable freedom in their internal
affairs, especially at the beginning. Historian Charles ? Andrews in comparing
the two countries with a colonial policy after think: the "rarely
interfere in the internal affairs of each colony for population flow, government
aid and maintain things rarely concerned." In addition, the settlers who
migrated to North America did not consider themselves inferior rulers, but
British overseas subjects, who not only transplanted British cultural
traditions, but also used the British legal system to justify their actions.

Secondly,
the navigation regulations had some protective effect on the development of
colonial economy. First, the navigation act provided that only British ships
could develop trade with the colonies, and north American merchants were
granted the same monopoly in the market as British merchants, in effect
securing protection in the international market. "The British navigation
regulations provided a protected international market for the American
colonists, under which each colony was relatively free to develop its own
internal economy," says gundsson, author of a new edition of American
economic history. It was under this powerful umbrella that the colonial
shipping industry grew. Good harbors, plentiful resources, and an open mind and
a sense of adventure inherited from the British, led New England merchants to
quickly become involved in world trade. The merchants of New England were
almost all over the world. They transported the products of North America to Europe,
brought home the European manufactured goods they needed, engaged in the slave
trade in the triangle, and opened up the little triangle trade with the west
Indies. New England traders brought slaves, dried fish, timber, horses, beef,
and grain to the west Indies, where they brought back sugar and the European
sugar syrup that was a vital ingredient in the manufacture of rum, the most
important commodity in the exchange for Indian pelts. The shipping industry was
a very important sector in North America at the time, and it became a major
source of capital accumulation in the United States. It is estimated that by
the 1770s, Philadelphia merchants had amassed a fortune of 500,000 pounds from
shipping alone. There were such wealthy businessmen as cooper of New York and
Hancock of Boston.

Secondly,
some industries suitable for Britain's needs in the colonies were not only not
limited by Britain, but also supported and helped by Britain. In order to
encourage the colonies to produce some of the products needed at home, Britain
subsidized some of the products badly needed in the domestic market, which
objectively benefited the colonies in developing the industries of these
subsidized products. At the end of the colonial period, the 13 colonies
received an average annual subsidy of more than 65,000 pounds from Britain. The
colonial gradually developed an export-oriented and diversified industrial
structure characterized by resource development under the category of British
mercantilism, and the manufacturing industry began to sprout. Of particular
note are the timber, shipbuilding, and iron smelting industries.

North
America was rich in forest resources that were strategically important to
Britain at the time. Before the mid-19th century, the use of wood for shipbuilding
was of strategic importance to a nation's maritime hegemony. But there is a
shortage of good quality shipbuilding, especially mast wood. To ensure its
maritime supremacy, Britain naturally had to pay attention to the strategic
stock of timber used in shipbuilding. In this case, the timber processing trade
in the colonies developed. In 1653, the first ships of mast wood from North
America arrived at the British naval shipyard. Since then, the British navy's
masts have relied almost entirely on North American supplies for more than a
century. In addition, the timber trade between New England and the west Indies
grew. Since the imports and exports of the West Indies were mostly wooden
barrels, the sheeting became a major trade between New England and the west
Indies, which required about a million sheeting and about 36 million cubic feet
of timber a year.

High
quality shipbuilding wood in North America, as well as other readily available
shipbuilding materials in forests such as asphalt and rosin, have prepared the
conditions for the development of the local shipbuilding industry. The
regulations on navigation, which provided that only British and colonial ships
were eligible for trade between Britain and its colonies, promoted the
development of the shipbuilding industry in both their own countries and
colonies. Shipbuilding increased by 150 percent in Massachusetts from 1669 --
1704 to 1769 -- 1771. Between 1763 and 1775, the 13 states of North America
produced an average of 40,000 tons per year, worth 300,000 pounds, of which
about 140,000 pounds were exported each year. By the eve of the American
revolution, about a third of the ships flying the British flag were built in
North America.

Although
opposition to the development of manufacturing in the colonies could be heard
in Britain, "during most of the colonial period, the king of England paid
close attention to the efforts of the colonists in North America to make pig
iron, because the charcoal used for iron smelting in Britain was insufficient and
pig iron became expensive". In the early 1640 s, the little John Winthrop
in Massachusetts Lynn to build the first iron works, produce 8 tons per week.
According to statistics, in 1770, the colony exported 133,079 tons of milling
iron and 1716 tons of iron bars. In 1775, the colonies produced about
one-seventh of the world's pig iron.

Thirdly,
we need to make an objective analysis of the implementation of certain
restrictive regulations of British mercantilism in the north American colonies.
When the provisions of the navigation act were consistent with the interests of
the colonies, the colonists did as they were required. When there was a
conflict, the colonists went their own way. For example, although the
navigation act prohibited north American merchants from shipping certain
products to areas outside the United Kingdom, colonial merchants simply ignored
it and developed a vast smuggling trade. Britain has adopted a policy of
"polite neglect". It was even thought that by the 1850s it would be
difficult to find a merchant in a northern colony who was not involved in
smuggling. It is estimated that a third of Boston's trade, particularly with
the West Indies, was against a law in 1700. Hancock, a leading figure of the
American revolution, was a famous smuggling king who amassed a huge fortune of
more than $400,000 from shipping and smuggling.

To
sum up, despite the restrictive regulations of British mercantilism, the north
American colonies initially formed an export-oriented economic development
model with regional diversity. It not only broke away from the west India and
Latin America in its development path, but also initially formed the economic
differences among different regions. It was only in the mid-18th century, when
new ideas and interest groups pushed the British parliament to change its
policies, to try to limit the import of foreign manufactured goods, to
encourage the export of manufactured goods, and to threaten the colony's
prosperity, that the two sides' ties weakened. Indeed, Britain's attempts to
tighten its grip on the colonies since 1733 have not been purely mercantilist.
From 1600 to 1700, the population of the 13 colonies in North America increased
fivefold to 275,000 and by 2.25 million before independence. A social economy
of prosperity, affluence, openness and diversity has been firmly established
here. Based on 1980 prices, the per-capita income of the colony in 1774 was
$804, and the per-capita ownership of property was 76 pounds, equivalent to
$2,888 at comparable prices in 1973. Therefore, some scholars believe that
"the American revolution is not the result of people's poverty, nor is it
the reflection of poverty, but the typical example of rich thoughts and
changes." Therefore, we need to make an objective and historical analysis
of the actual role of British mercantilist policies in the north American
colonies to avoid generalizations.